bootleg Archive

Here’s another case of a long-circulating bootleg finding official release (see also: yesterday’s review of an Iron Butterfly live set). The Move were big in the UK, but went largely unknown in America. At least, that is, until they shifted personnel a bit and rebranded themselves as Electric Light Orchestra. The band certainly knew all

There’s been a spate of previously-unreleased live albums released of late; this week I’m focusing on five of them. The first, a 1975 set by Magma, offered way-out music and excellent sonic quality. The second, a 1980 Captain Beefheart set, showcased equally strange (but quite different) music in terrible audio quality. Today’s entry features much

The late Captain Beefheart is one of those rare creatures. The casual music fan is unfamiliar with his name; a subset of those who know of him have actually heard him; fewer still can make a reasonable claim to actually enjoying his music. Appreciate it, yes: I know of quite a few of my friends

Continued from Part One… The aforementioned Aretha Franklin segment is of particular interest, as it shows the off-the-cuff nature of the program. As Lindsay is discussing the soul singer’s career with guest Jackie DeShannon, they note that Aretha was “on Columbia” (also Paul Revere and the Raiders‘ label) for five years, but “didn’t go anywhere.”

Though it’s often forgotten today, in the mid 1960s, Paul Revere and the Raiders were just about the most prominent rock’n’roll band in popular culture. Sure, The Beatles had their records all over the charts, and had films like A Hard Day’s Night and Help! And yes, The Monkees had their own weekly television show.

Bootlegs or ROIOs* or fan recordings: however one wishes to label them, they play an often important and unappreciated part in documenting musical history. As Clinton Heylin explains in his excellent 1994 book Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry, surreptitious and/or unauthorized fan recordings have been responsible for capturing otherwise unheard performances

Here’s a thick slab of irony. These kings of the lo-fi aesthetic have released a myriad collection of studio and live discs, and their general approach to recording betrays an interest in getting it down on tape and moving on. Oft-compared to The Who, GbV is one of those groups about whom it is said

Kirsty MacColl was famous for a few things. One, her dad was famed folksinger Ewan MacColl. Two, she wrote and recorded the original version of the girl-group pastiche “They Don’t Know”, later covered by Tracey Ullman. Three, she was a writer and vocalist of some stylistic range, having worked with Johnny Marr, Shane McGowan, Evan

Having paid his debt to society, convicted felon Arthur Lee surprised all interested parties by returning to the music scene in the 90s more musically focused than he’d ever been. Having led the critical darlings Love in mid 60s Los Angeles, Lee had established a mystique around the band. Their music ran the gamut from

By 2006, everything seemed to get recorded. From every single date of David Gilmour‘s solo tour, to a Peter Tork set with his blues group in a Dallas bar, tapers are there, and generally with ace equipment to capture the night for posterity. So it was that an intrepid taper captured this set, days before

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